[Discussioni] newsscan

[Francesco Potorti`]

BT LOSES BATTLE TO CLAIM HYPERLINK ROYALTIES
In a test case for British Telecom's claim that it owns a patent on 
hyperlinking technology, U.S. Judge Colleen McMahon has dismissed BT's 
claims, saying that Prodigy's use of the technology did not infringe on 
BT's 25-year-old patent. McMahon found several flaws in BT's argument, most 
notably that the Internet has no "central computer" as described in the 
original patent filing. As part of its defense, Prodigy offered a 1968 
video by Stanford University computer scientist Douglas Engelbart 
apparently demonstrating hypertext technology, eight years before BT filed 
its patent application in the U.S. (BBC News 23 Aug 2002)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2212203.stm